Yesterday, I received the worst political fundraising message I can remember ever having received. It wasn’t outlandishly bad, like a message from a Republican politician telling me that I have to stand up for marriage by blocking other people from getting married. This message’s flaws were more subtle, and yet more devastating, because they represent an attitude about politics that doesn’t even have enough integrity to stand for bad ideas.
This message told me, straight to my face, that ideas don’t matter, and that I only matter to the degree that I allow myself to be used.
The message came from Robby Mook, of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and it told me of “unsettling news”. It delivered unsettling news to me, all right, but not the sort Mook expected me to take away.
The message started, “Today, Mitt Romney is holding a $50,000-a-head fundraiser in the Hamptons with one of the Big Oil billionaire Koch Brothers. They’ll have a lot to celebrate together: Romney’s campaign brought in a whopping $100 million in June and the Kochs have raised millions more for their outside groups.”
That sounds scary. $50,000 per head! Golly.
Of course, I also know that Barack Obama has been holding big fundraisers with about the same price per head. Does Robby Mook really think that I’m ignorant of that? What kind of idiot does he take me for?
He thinks I’m an idiot with money to spare, apparently. Mook’s message continues: “If Mitt and his SuperPAC backers can bury us under a wave of corporate special interest cash right now, we will lose in November.
We need you right now.
If everyone who’s been waiting to give pitches in $3 or more today we can start closing the gap right now. Please do your part — make a donation of $3 or more right now.”
Here’s the essential argument that Robby Mook’s message is making… with the unstated premises included:
1. Mitt Romney is gathering a lot of money.
2. Money is the way that elections are won. There are no other ways to win elections besides spending more money than the competition.
3. The Democrats want to win the election.
4. Therefore, the Democrats need money.
5. Therefore, when I say the Democrats need you, what I mean is that the Democrats need your money.
6. And so, you see, that the Democratic Party looks at liberal voters as nothing more than potential sources of money… also known as suckers.
It’s an offensive, demoralizing message. Robby Mook completely accepts the idea that it’s money, not ideas, that win an election. What’s more, Mook is broadcasting that idea out to voters, saying in effect, that we all should just forget about the ideals that we believe in, because what really matters is cash.
Robby Mook is telling voters that they aren’t powerful, that they aren’t meaningful, and that what they have to give of themselves through their social networks and activism isn’t worth anything.
Never, anywhere in Mook’s email, is there a single sentence telling me what the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee plans to do with the money that people donate to it. Never does Mook say anything about why it matters that President Obama wins a second term in office. He doesn’t explain what makes Obama different from Romney, or what Obama would do differently from Romney.
Mook begs like a compulsive gambler, saying that his competition has upped the ante, and he needs some cash to stay in the game. It’s a transparently amoral request that abuses the pretense of a social connection. Instead of asking for more money to stay in the game, Mook and the Democratic Party ought to be asking themselves why they’re playing the game. They ought to be challenging the game of politics purchased with cash.
If Barack Obama hadn’t spent his first term in office acting like a Republican, and supporting the worst policies of George W. Bush, he wouldn’t need more money than Mitt Romney to win re-election. By telling me that it’s only my money that matters – no citizenship required, Mook is confirming my worst fears about what the Democratic Party has become.
I’m saying this as someone who was once a member of my state’s Democratic Party Committee. I once believed that the best way to reform politics was to make the Democratic Party stronger. I gave them money – a good portion of my income at the time.
And then, I saw how the Democratic Party spent that money: It promoted its own power without following through on the progressive values that I had believed the Democratic Party stood for. Cycle after cycle, I watched the Democrats keep on saying that, yes, the issues would come to center stage, but after the next election. If the Democrats could only win the next election, then they would deliver…
Robby Mook’s message reminds me of one of the lessons I gained through my disillusionment with the Democratic Party: Winning elections doesn’t matter if none of the candidates are standing up for the ideas that are important.
Now, in 2012, it just so happens that there is a presidential candidate who is standing up for the ideas that are important. That candidate is not Mitt Romney.
That candidate isn’t Barack Obama, either. The policy differences between Romney and Obama are rather small.
The only presidential candidate who is standing up for the ideas that are important in this historical moment is the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein.
No, I’m not sending Jill Stein money. Stein won’t win this election with money. The only way that Jill Stein is going to win this election is if American voters decide to pay attention to the details of the political process, and educate themselves about the issues, rather than relying on cable TV news entertainment shows for information.
Yes, that makes it a longshot for Stein to win. However, even though my vote will likely be lost in a sea of ballots cast by people who feel obliged to support either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, and never anything else, I’m willing to speak out in favor of what I actually believe, rather than the best candidate that money can buy.
No thank you, Robby Mook. I won’t give you three cents. It’s time to walk away from the table.
“If Barack Obama hadn’t spent his first term in office acting like a Republican, and supporting the worst policies of George W. Bush, he wouldn’t need more money than Mitt Romney to win re-election.” – So true.
Great article. Though I still support Rocky Anderson, rather than Jill Stein, I’m tempted to share it.
Very good article and exactly my thoughts!
“No, I’m not sending Jill Stein money. Stein won’t win this election with money. The only way that Jill Stein is going to win this election is if American voters decide to pay attention to the details of the political process, and educate themselves about the issues, rather than relying on cable TV news entertainment shows for information.
Yes, that makes it a longshot for Stein to win. However, even though my vote will likely be lost in a sea of ballots cast by people who feel obliged to support either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, and never anything else, I’m willing to speak out in favor of what I actually believe, rather than the best candidate that money can buy.”
http://questioneverything.typepad.com/
It probably won’t matter who gets elected.
Let me make sure I’ve got this right:
Tom thinks it doesn’t matter who gets elected…because, you know, if Romney had been elected four years ago instead of Obama he would have been equally likely to have spearheaded the passage of health reform, to have ended Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, to have refused to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court, to have appointed two liberal pro-choice women to the Supreme Court, to have created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to have staved off another Great Depression through fiscal stimuli, to have taken out Osama Bin Laden, to have signed Dodd-Frank, and more…all at huge personal risk to his career in politics.
Anissa, disgusted with conventional politics as many people are, believes that, for her, ideological purity trumps effort, compromise, and progress. She’s willing to passively vote for Romney by withholding her vote from Obama by voting for a progressive who cannot win.
Joshua, along with the author of this article, believes that if Obama had performed as an uncompromising progressive in his first term he wouldn’t need to match Romney’s fundraising…despite the fact that progressives such as Joshua constitute only a microscopic fraction of the American electorate.
Progressives who won’t support Obama because he turned out not to be the Second Coming remind me of Jim Jones’ followers: “Hey, let’s all kill ourselves…boy, that’ll show ‘em, huh?”
Let me see if I’ve got this right:
Bill equates a vote for Jill Stein with a “passive vote for Romney,” without asking whether Anissa lives in a swing state, without assessing the potential for Jill Stein in Anissa’s state, also without considering the benefits for third-party ballot access of a successful vote.
Bill shoots for “uncompromising progressive” when many would have been satisfied with a president who keeps his most of his campaign promises, creating a false dichotomy in expectations when there’s a gamut of possibilities. There is a difference between criticizing a president’s policy choices and not supporting Obama “because he turned out not to be the Second Coming.”
Bill also misreads poll numbers, which show very clearly that (to cite just one issue among many in which the liberal position is articulated) three-fourths of the American public disagree with the statement that “the government should take all steps necessary to prevent additional acts of terrorism in the U.S. even if it means your basic civil liberties would be violated” and nearly three-fourths of the American public agree that “the government should take steps to prevent additional acts of terrorism but not if those steps would violate your basic civil liberties.” Want another majority liberal position? Here’s one. Want yet another majority liberal position? See here on stopping tax cuts for the rich and saying no to Medicare cuts.
Perhaps you mean that a majority of on-air pundits aren’t liberals.
Love you JIM!
Bill.. *sigh* you must fail at relationship because you assume too much. Nope, not voting for Romney. Keep guessing.
i see you didn’t read the link Bill. Elections aren’t going to fix what’s wrong with this country or the entire globe for that matter. Playing the what if game doesn’t cut it either. Though i campaigned and voted for Obama i’m disgusted with his Republican/corporatist stance and policies on everything from failing to prosecute anyone for anything to his secret trade talks going on right now; i’m pissed that he continued the wars (which we can’t afford, never mind that their immoral and instigated by HIM – not Congress); i’m appalled that he’s usurped so much power that he can now kill anyone he wants including American citizens – anywhere in the world and by executive order he allows himself to confiscate all means of food production during a “national emergency”.
i’m not saying Romney will be any better (or “would have been”). What i’m saying is that he hasn’t done a thing about the environment (i didn’t expect anything from Bush) – and now it’s too late (with methane gushing into the atmosphere now, it’s only going to get worse from here on out – probably to extinction).
Good luck with your election. Watch and see how much changes for the better in the future.
Couldn’t agree with you more, Tom!!
Between the DCCC , Obama campaign and Obama websites, they claim Mitt is beating them at fundraising. And really, it’s disgusting to see how much money combined they’ve raised when people have lost their homes and are having a hard time feeding their families, I see that Obama still has collected more. http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/campaign-finance/ It appears, this may be totals at the end of May, neglecting the total for month ending June, but it’s surprising to see such panic over the past few weeks. The panic has gone as far as requesting your wedding or anniversary gifts (monetary, I’m sure) be donated to Obama instead.
And Bill, really? We all should just commit suicide? Who thinks of stuff like that? A bully does! When a bully loses control, they become dramatic and has some sort of fit by making irrational statements. Obama worshipers seem to ignore the fact, Obama is bought just like Mitt. When Obama signed NDAA, HR347 and had continued Bush policies that you seem to cry so much about during Bush years, it’s not important anymore. We need an uprising and that is why it doesn’t even matter who wins this election. If Mitt wins, Obama worshipers may wake up and realize their savior destroyed their ability to protest their government on or near govt. buildings. Because you know, protesting in your backyard isn’t as effective as protesting near or on government buildings (HR347). And if you lose control and become dramatic as you have in your post, you may end up in jail without trial (NDAA).
Wow, Anissa. We share a mind. I had observed the same exact things you did, and similarly concluded that it must be some macchiavellian fundraising tactic. They are not just ahead of Romney in fundraising, but way ahead. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the Obama campaign $110 million on hand versus $17 million, with the total accumulation over the course of the campaign being twice what Romney has raised ($255 million versus $121 million). The only possible exception to this would be if the Republican “SuperPAC’s” have out-funded the Democrat ones and if those totals beat the campaign totals. If so, the Obama people should be ashamed for not having a lot more money on hand, because they’ve sold out to just about every big biz interest group that’s walked in the door the last four years. Yet he had no primary challenger, and now there’s a lousy, uninspiring candidate running against him in the form of Mitt Romney.
It looks like four more years of this.
Well, I’m glad to see I’ve stimulated a debate, as this is a topic well worth one. As a point of order, Anissa, as I take some time to formulate my response, I did not say (or intend to suggest) “We all should just commit suicide?” What I meant to say via my Jim Jones analogy was that I view a demographic such as progressives willingly throwing their votes away as the electoral equivalent of suicide-for-spite.
Would love to carry on this debate because, as I say, I think the one thing we can definitely agree on is that it is a debate worth having. Can we do it without epithets such as “bully” “irrational” and “fit”?
No, Bill. We can not carry on the debate that you started on this thread without referencing bullying and irrationality–because that’s the way you started it. You were being a fucking asshole, Bill.
We could start a new debate where people didn’t distort, intimidate, belittle, name-call, etc. But we really can’t continue the debate you started without being real jerks to each other.
Ugh. f you want to be an asshole and talk trash, step up to it. Don’t go reference Jim Jones and then say, “My goodness people, I certainly never said anything about mass suicide, let’s have a nice civil discussion!?”
I’m on to your trick. People have been using it against liberals for years. Ann Coulter really mastered it. You come out really aggressive and nasty, then when you’re counter-attacked, you play the victim and just wonder aloud, “Gosh, why can’t we have a nice civil conversation about the issues?” Then the nice liberals are supposed to say, “Oh, I’m sorry, was I being mean?”
Bitch please.
Nuff said, Ralph. More than enough.